California same-party races force hard choices

Whether they achieve their objective, however, will depend on whether voters are willing to cast any ballot at all in a general election for a member of an opposing party. Regardless of how much pressure parties exert on their members, polling and election experts suggest some voters don’t vote on contests without a candidate who shares their party affiliation. Analysis of the possibility of a dropoff in voting is already underway. Election data analyst Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., reviewed the 50th Assembly District runoff in 2012 between Democrats Richard Bloom and Betsy Butler and found that as many as 35 percent of Republicans didn’t cast a vote in the contest, while only a very small percentage of Democrats skipped the race. Still, Bloom, backed by business interests, was the victor over Butler, a more traditional labor-backed Democrat.